The use of the world wide web (WWW) has become an everyday activity all over the world. Usually, web users access web content as so-called web pages by specifying a corresponding address in some kind of user terminal node, such as a stationary, mobile or tablet computer or a mobile phone with corresponding web access capabilities. Conventional user terminal nodes may feature one or more applications (software) for accessing web pages, e.g. in the form of so-called browsers. These browsers handle the request for specified web content and the content's display to and interaction with the user.
Web content is usually organized in the form of web pages that can be individually addressed and accessed by specifying their respective web addresses. One common way for addressing web pages is the definition of locations where the corresponding content is stored. The internet with its so-called internet protocol (IP) provides the related IP addresses that are intended to identify one unique storage location. Since such IP addresses are in the form of several tuples of numbers, they are difficult to memorize and are usually not suitable for everyday public use. However, there exist the concept of the so-called domain name servers (DNS) that can translate plain text addresses into their associated IP address. In this way, there is an easy means available for accessing a web page by associating its content to a plain text address, such as “www.nasa.gov”.
The data objects related to the web content, e.g. all the text, image and multimedia files of one web page, are usually stored on one or more server node, which convey the related resources to the requesting terminal node along one or more network nodes. Here, the latter mentioned network nodes stand for all the infrastructure that is involved for conveying the requested content from the server node to the terminal node. This infrastructure may include switching and routing nodes of local area networks (LAN), the internet, gateways and access nodes on the user's end, like ADSL nodes or mobile communication networks with their base station nodes (eNBs) and possibly also relay nodes. In general, there is usually a number of individual network nodes of one or more domains that handle the data traffic toward the user's end and thus convey the web content toward the terminal node.
The aforementioned network nodes are usually under control and responsibility of one or more service providers, such as the operators of regional, national, or international internet domains, a network for serving the last mile toward the users (e.g. ADSL), or mobile telecommunication networks, in case the user accesses the web content from a mobile terminal node, such as a smartphone. Usually, the users subscribe the access service from an operator who, in exchange to the user paying a fee, provides access to web content from corresponding terminals, e.g. from the user's smartphone.
The involved operators and service providers usually compete for delivering web access service to users, in the sense that users usually have a choice amongst several service providers with the consequence that a user may change the service provider if the user experiences the provided service as in dissatisfactory. Hence, from an operator's or service provider's point of view, it should be desirable that the network provides a reasonably good web quality of experience (QoE) to their subscribers. As a consequence, the satisfaction with network performance can be quite a significant factor as regards user loyalty. In order for network performance to be perceived by users as “good quality”, network operators may want to ensure that web pages loads quickly—at a speed considered reasonable within that market. Anything slower than this may disappoint users, so that they may opt for changing the provider.
In general, as seen from an end user perspective, the quality of a web session may be highly dependent on the time needed to download the requested page that is also referred to as the so-called Page Load Time (PLT). If the PLT is too long, the user will note this as unsatisfactory and long delays may even to be found as unacceptable. For example, a response delay of 1 second is the limit for user's flow of thought to stay uninterrupted. For mobile applications, it was found that the user's visual attention may shift away after 4 to 8 seconds. A response time of about 10 may be regarded as a limit and after that the response is experienced as negative and the maximum for an acceptable waiting time is in the order of 15 to 20 seconds. Ideally the download time would be reported directly from the terminal node (i.e. user terminal), as it is only the user terminal that really knows what objects and resources belong together, and when a full page has been downloaded. However, such client reporting is impractical and thus normally not available, especially for the case of Communication Service Providers (CSPs, providers). Reports available to server owners, browser vendors or even to CSPs usually employ an installed application that reports performance-related figures.
However, even if network operators and service providers may be aware of the need to observe user satisfaction, there are technical obstacles as far as the availability of relevant information is concerned. In the conventional arts, there are no systems and methods at hand that would provide a rapid identification of the reasons behind slow web sessions passing through a multi-domain network (core, radio, backhaul and service domains) of the involved network nodes between a server node and the requesting terminal node, i.e. on an end-to-end basis.
There is therefore a need for improved techniques for obtaining a performance metric in systems conveying web content from a server note to a terminal node along network nodes. Specifically, there is also a need for allowing the identification of the cause of unsatisfactory system performance yielding low user QoE, since knowledge about the cause allows operators and providers to react and take the appropriate measures for restoring and maintaining satisfactory user QoE.